Bowled Over
by Weavillain
Summary: Five years into their relationship meant that to Ronnie Anne Santiago, she had Lincoln's number when it came to competition. He proves her wrong with ten frames and a yellow bowling ball. (Lincoln x Ronnie Anne)


Being together with Lincoln Loud on a Saturday afternoon was nothing new for Ronnie Anne Santiago. However, she couldn't help but feel slightly suspicious about the circumstances. For some odd reason, when Lincoln proposed the idea of them trying out bowling together for the first time about three days ago, he sounded oddly elated about the idea. Not just about hanging out together but at the challenge he had laid out against her.

Ronnie Anne never lost to her boyfriend. That hadn't changed since they had started dating five years ago and she never planned for it to happen in the present. Lincoln knew about her competitive streak firsthand, being on the receiving end of defeat after defeat in all of their pastimes over the years and for the most part, he seemed rather content with just being in her company.

But all she could focus on, as they entered the King Pin Bowling Alley and headed to the front desk to purchase their shoes, was how confident Lincoln sounded when he presented their date/competition over the phone that day. Lincoln rarely initiated any sort of competitive outings, knowing full well that he'd get mercilessly creamed. Despite her extensive record of wins, it still made Ronnie Anne slightly on her guard.

Had he been practicing behind her back? That was the first thought to come to mind but she immediately doubted it since Lincoln's free time was spent on watching his younger siblings at home, studying, hanging out with Clyde, or spending quality time with her. There's no way he'd be able to squeeze in enough free time to be practicing bowling all by himself.

She finally settled on the notion of him just throwing caution in the wind and challenging her to an activity that neither of them had ever spent extensive time on before. That made more sense. But still, even with that line of logic that Lincoln had surely relied on, Ronnie Anne couldn't see herself losing to him. Bowling required hand-eye coordination, focus, and dexterity, something that she knew that she had in spades over Lincoln.

Once they purchased their shoes and headed towards their designated lane, which they were both happy with being at the far end of the alley and away from a crowd, Ronnie Anne finally decided to speak up about her confusion towards Lincoln's bravado.

"I can't believe you're doing this, Lincoln."

He turned to her, flashing her a smile that only served to make her gut do somersaults. Something about that boastful grin made her tingle in all the right places. It was a shame that she'd have to wipe it off his face by moping the floor with him.

"Why not? It's not like you objected to the idea when I proposed it," Lincoln countered boldly.

"Yeah but I figured you'd come to your senses and back out by now," Ronnie Anne fired back with a smile of her own. If he wanted to get cocky with her, she had no problem returning serve.

They reached their destination in no time at all but barely took notice as they were too busy trying to get one over on the other with their braggadocious banter.

"Oh?" Lincoln asked as they both took a seat on the bench in front of their lane and began taking off their shoes for the bowling shoes they bought earlier. "And why's that?"

"You know exactly why," Ronnie Anne responded with bombast, "I always kick your ass. Video games, skateboarding, air hockey, staring contests. The list goes on. You never win. What makes you think bowling will be any different?"

She thought that her valid argument would finally put Lincoln in his place. With folded arms and an amused smirk, she turned to Lincoln and waited for him to come to his senses. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face when his fantasies about him defeating her start crumbling.

Once he would start groveling, begging her not to whoop him too soundly, she'd refuse, of course, knowing that she'd have to put Lincoln in his place just like always but she'd promise that once they went over to her place, she'd cheer him up by getting him to watch a movie with her in her room, all while walking around in nothing but a plain white T-shirt and her underwear. She wasn't without complete mercy, after all.

To her surprise, Lincoln not only refused to kowtow before her like she expected but he scooted closer to her, until their noses touched and he was gazing into her eyes, centering her within his sights as if she was the most important aspect of his universe.

She did nothing to stop him as he began lightly tracing her thigh through the fabric of her denim shorts, stopping at the very edge of the fabric where he would begin to make contact with her exposed skin if he wasn't so focused on teasing her.

His hushed voice only made her wish that they were in the privacy of her room. Then, she'd show him _exactly_ what she thought of this stunt he was pulling.

"Doesn't hurt to try. Besides, you're not that experienced with bowling. Who knows?" He broke eye contact with her in favor of bringing his lips right up to her ear so he could whisper huskily, "I might just _crush_ you."

Satisfied with himself, Lincoln left his flustered girlfriend on the bench to sit in front of their designated bowling machine and start entering in their names. As he did so, Ronnie Anne did her best to regain her composure by responding to his coquettish advances/smack talk with her signature brand of indifference.

"Pssh. As if."

With his back turned to Ronnie Anne, Lincoln reveled gleefully in the fact that his master plan was working to perfection. He was worried about her catching on to him but with the both of them about to throw down and Ronnie Anne wound up and chomping at the bit to shut him up, there was only one last thing to do to make this plan of his worth all the preparation he had done before today.

Turning back to Ronnie Anne once he was done entering their names, he decided to commence with the final act.

' _Time to see if all this secret training paid off,'_ Lincoln thought as he tried to force his heartbeat to regain a normal pace despite the anxiety building up within him.

"Y'know what? Since you seem so confident, how about we make a little bet?" Lincoln suggested with as much leisure and nonchalance as he could, hoping that Ronnie Anne wouldn't see through his attempt to make his idea appear to be thought up on the spot.

That got her attention in a hurry. Brazenly challenging her was one thing. Betting was entirely something completely out of character for him.

Ronnie Anne chuckled wickedly. Had five years taught him nothing? Was he so full of himself that he had forgotten all the times she had trounced him? Boyfriend or not, Ronnie Anne knew she would regret passing up this chance to get something out of him.

Besides, it was his decision to bet. He'd have no one to blame but himself if he didn't like whatever burden he'd have to deal with afterwards.

"A bet, you say? What kind of bet?" Ronnie Anne inquired with the outward innocence of a toddler but the inward mischief she was known for.

She praised herself when Lincoln seemingly didn't pick up the naughty vibes she was harboring.

"The regular kind," he explained. "I win, I get something from you. You win, you get something from me. That type of bet." He turned back to look at the bowling ball rack to pick up one of the twelve pounders that had found him the most success in his secret practicing. He settled on a yellow one and returned to talk to Ronnie Anne to her face.

"And what exactly do you have in mind for our bet?" She questioned him, getting up from the bench to stand face to face with him. Since she was shorter than him by about two or three inches, she could plainly see the few strands of white hair that were poking out of his chin like tiny weeds.

She shivered lightly at the way his eyebrow arched up in playfully condescending manner as he asked mirthfully, "So you're up to it then?"

"Do I look like I'm scared to take it head on?"

"Nope. Just wanted to be sure you weren't chickening out."

She spluttered indignantly at his cheeky retort, which only made him laugh at her inability to cope with Lincoln's confidence.

Whether she liked it or not, Lincoln found her to be downright adorable sometimes.

"So anyways, I say that if I manage to get a higher score then you…"

' _Here goes nothing,_ ' he voiced out mentally to no one in particular as he feigned pondering over the stakes. He knew what he wanted already but couldn't allow Ronnie Anne to think that he had planned this entire ordeal out ahead of time.

"You have to let me tutor you for the upcoming finals every day until they happen," he declared and inwardly winced at the panicked look that was painted on her face. He crossed his fingers and hoped that her pride wouldn't allow her to bail out of the bet and ruin his plans entirely.

To his relief, all Ronnie Anne did was react instinctively to his proposal like he would expect her to do.

"What?! What the hell, Lincoln?! Those are over a month away!"

"So?" he lightly lambasted, "You shouldn't let that tempt you to procrastinate. Why do you think I'm never in danger of flunking, unlike a certain girlfriend of mine that had to be bailed out of failing three separate classes last year by yours truly?"

Her stunned silence and blushing face was all he needed to see. It was a bit of a low blow to bring up her academic disappointments but at least she seemed as if she realized that changing her studying habits, which were practically nonexistent, was the right thing to do to make sure she'd get through high school.

Regardless, knowing what to do and actually doing it were two different things, something Lincoln knew all too well by the fact that despite her shortcomings in the tenth grade last year, Ronnie Anne made little change in her studying habits, choosing to slack off all semester and then quickly rush about frantically to pass her classes by the skin of her teeth. Although she had succeeded in not failing all year, Lincoln knew that she couldn't keep it up for long, especially with finals looming just around the corner.

Hence why for months behind her back, Lincoln had been practicing how to bowl better in preparation for today, hoping to beat her and have her to submit to their bet. He knew he'd never get her to get serious with hitting the books otherwise. He was never too shabby at bowling to begin with but he needed to be more than "not bad" to beat Ronnie Anne, even at something that he knew she wasn't too well-versed in herself.

"So what's gonna happen if you beat me?" Lincoln asked her, wanting to snap Ronnie Anne out her blatant self-pity and back in the zone.

He chortled when she quickly regained her stride, as if she hadn't been taken on a crash course of humility. Apparently, she had more than enough time to think about what she wanted out the bet.

"Well, _when_ I beat you," Ronnie Anne corrected smugly, "you'll have to babysit my little cousins with me for the entire summer after school ends," she challenged with gusto and flair.

Lincoln's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. Dominque? Rafael? Melissa? She couldn't mean those cousins, could she? The terrifying trio that he had heard her complain endlessly about? The little monsters that had enough boundless energy and mischief to wreak havoc across an entire neighborhood block within ten minutes? The ravenous hooligans that tore through an entire pantry's worth of snacks? The devious ones responsible for painting half of Ronnie Anne's bedroom with a variety of colors while her backed was turned?

As if she read his thoughts, she nodded her head to confirm that he was correct. Lincoln gulped. He thought having to watch over Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa, and Lily was bad and that was with knowing just about everything about them and having the wisdom to counteract any emergency their eccentric personalities could bring about.

Those three, by the sounds of all the tales that Ronnie Anne would bequeath to him after she had to deal with them, were the product of a mad scientist's experiment gone horribly wrong. And they usually visited Ronnie Anne's house at least twice a week during the summer.

Finding his resolve despite his dread at the notion of him losing, Lincoln reached out his hand to Ronnie Anne, waiting for her to do the same so that she could shake it and seal their bet.

"Deal," they both said simultaneously once their hands gripped together.

* * *

"Well, would you look at that?" Ronnie Anne pridefully declared, looking over her handiwork with great approval as the ball she just rolled knocked down the remaining three pins that she had left behind with her first try.

She turned to Lincoln, expecting him to be fidgeting about nervously at her great first frame. Instead, to her surprise, he mockingly yawned at her display, getting up out of his seat on the bench to retrieve his own ball once the ten pins were set up again for Lincoln to begin his turn.

Rather than snap back at him with a witty remark, Ronnie Anne decided to simply sit back and watch Lincoln eat his words. Taking her spot on the bench now, Ronnie Anne enjoyed the show that was in front of her once her eyes focused on Lincoln from behind.

She never appreciated fashion all that much, simply preferring to just wear whatever she felt like as long as it was practical. But in this case, she had to thank Lincoln or whomever it was that picked out his jeans. As Lincoln bent over to position himself in front of the lane, Ronnie Anne couldn't help but settle her eyes onto his butt, swooning slightly as it jostled a little as he found his footing. She couldn't tell if he was doing it on purpose or not but she didn't care. All she knew was that once their game was over, she wanted to drag him home so she could tear his pants off and start biting and kissing it with wild abandon.

If he wasn't careful, she'd pull him into one of the empty bathrooms there and do it in there instead, consequences and social barriers be damned.

Before her Rated PG-13 fantasies could deviate into more explicit territory, the sound of pins meeting a bowling ball broke her out of her trance. She wiped away at the drool dripping out the corner of her mouth and looked up at the screen overhead, expecting the monitor to showcase a measly amount of pins that Lincoln had managed to knock down with amateur acumen. To her dismay and shock, a giant "X" flashed underneath Lincoln's name, indicating that he had just managed to get a strike.

The white-haired teenager emulated the same posture and gesticulations as Ronnie Anne did from before and announced with enthusiasm, "Well, would you look at that?"

' _I'm totally screwed, aren't I?"_ Ronnie Anne lamented mentally as her mouth remained agape at what Lincoln had just done.

After three more frames, Ronnie Anne knew for sure that she was done for. She had never been backed into a corner like this by Lincoln before. Somehow, he managed to get another three strikes in a row after his first one, leaving Ronnie Anne completely in his dust since all she had managed to do, that could be deemed impressive, was pick up a strike in the third lane. In the second and fourth, she couldn't even get a spare.

She couldn't find relief when his strike streak finally came to an end when he only managed to knock down nine pins in the fifth frame since he was able to knock down the last remaining one and get a spare.

' _How?! How is he so good?!'_ Ronnie Anne cognitively cried out in anguish once she looked up at the scoreboard and soaked in how badly she was getting trounced. Half the game was over by now and he was at 127 with her at a puny 62.

He had more than double her own score! There was no way she could catch up now. It was impossible. Beyond impossible!

As she got up to begin her sixth frame, she glanced over at Lincoln, who grinned at her yet again with that arrogantly confident grin that was one part infuriating and two parts maddingly sexy. A tiny part of her was happy that she was getting dominated like this if it meant seeing this side of Lincoln but her overarching portion of her being agonized over the idea of being nose deep in books every day for over a month, even if it meant that she'd be spending more time with Lincoln.

Despite the odds, she had to win. She just had to. As she aimed her ball, posed and ready to roll down the lane, she settled on the possibility of him watching over her cousins with him, relishing in the thought of having the burden of that hell shared with him.

With that endgame in her sights, Ronnie Anne brought her nervous breathing to a halt and threw her ball down the lane, eagerly anticipating the results.

* * *

"And I believe that's game," Lincoln proclaimed as he finished with his last frame, dusting off his hands in a show of accomplishment and finality. He whistled a merry tune as he picked up his bowling ball and placed it back on the rack he got it from earlier, walking by a shell-shocked and rigid Ronnie Anne in the process as she sat on the bench, mouth completely wide open and eyes staring at the scoreboard. She almost looked like she was posing for the Mannequin Challenge fad that was popular five years ago.

Walking up to her, he snapped his fingers in front of her face a few times and broke her out of her haze.

"Hazabuh whuh?" she uttered unintelligibly as she started to regain her bearings. She looked up at the scoreboard again and felt her heart sink when the situation finally hit her like a tidal wave.

Lincoln had managed to finish the game with 233 points while she trailed behind with 164 points. She managed to do much better in the second half, getting three spares and two strikes in a row on the seventh and eighth frame but it still wasn't enough to counter Lincoln, who churned out four more strikes within the second half and a spare on the sixth.

She was utterly crushed. Whether he was better at bowling than he let on or not wasn't the point at all. She had lost. Decisively at that. And if Lincoln had done so by practicing without her knowing it, she knew she deserved to lose. Besides, she had beaten him in challenges that she knew she was better at him at before, all because of her experience versus his inexperience. Being on the receiving end of that for a change, after five years of victory after victory, was admittedly difficult to get used to but she knew she'd be petty if she couldn't genuinely feel proud of him.

But still, with the bet that he proposed and the results of their game said and done, she couldn't help but think that this was all a big set-up to get her to start taking her school work seriously. And if she was right, would it be fair to get angry at him for wanting her to do better in school and doing so by taking time out of his free time to help her out?

"Ready to go home, Ronnie Anne?" Lincoln offered as he waited for Ronnie Anne to answer him back. She looked up at Lincoln and smiled back at him as she got up her seat and kissed him on the cheek.

"Yeah. I'm ready to go home, you little sneak," she teased and laughed at his stuttering and red face from being found out.

"Wh-what a-are you talking about?" Lincoln mumbled, looking nervously around the bowling alley as they got up from their seats to return the bowling shoes they were still wearing.

Ronnie Anne grabbed him by the hand and squeezed it gently, coaxing him to look down at her and the amused smile on her face.

"Oh, please. I figured out your little scheme, Lincoln. But it's okay. I'm not mad. You must've spent a lot of time practicing to get good enough to beat me, didn't you? And all just to get me to start studying. Can't say that I'm disappointed in that. And I'll try to not make things difficult for you. I wouldn't be the best girlfriend in the world if I did."

Sighing in relief with the knowledge that she wouldn't pummel him, Lincoln smiled warmly back at her.

"Thanks, Ronnie Anne."

He was thankful that he managed to execute his plan to perfection but he still couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at deceiving Ronnie Anne like he did. He never lied to her about how good he was but he purposefully gave off enough signs of him being a rookie to permeate the notion of their bowling match being on even ground.

Sighing, he returned a hand squeeze of his own in order to get her attention. He would probably regret doing this after he said it but if there was anyone in the world he'd take a bullet for…

…or help babysit a couple of bratty children with, it was Ronnie Anne Santiago.

"Hey, listen, about your cousins, how's about every now and then, I come over and I help you look after them this summer?"

"You'd really do that for me? I mean, I lost the bet and…"

"Forget about it," Lincoln insisted fervently, "Besides, I think I remember you mentioning that the oldest of them was seven, right?"

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Well, little kids have to get tired out and tucker out eventually, right?"

Not understanding where he was going with this, Ronnie Anne just shrugged at him. With the same sort of mischief, she saw in his eyes while he silently gloated over his surmounting victory during the game, Ronnie Anne was completely spellbound when Lincoln leaned down until his lips were near her ear again.

"Soooooooo, I was thinking that while they were sleeping, we could go to your room and..."

Ronnie Anne was grateful that no one else was around to hear what Lincoln was promising he'd have in store for her once they were alone, without the possibility of anyone barging in on them. She shuddered blissfully when on his departure from her ear, he gave it a tiny lick along the shell.

She coyly exchanged a naughty smile to mirror Lincoln's. He wasn't the only one who had a less than innocent idea planned for them. Despite outright losing to him at bowling, Ronnie Anne had the pleasure of ogling his derriere while he went up to bowl.

She hoped he wouldn't mind having a few bite marks in his butt. If he did, she knew she was more than capable of getting him to forgive her.

"I like the way you think. Now let's get out of here. I've got something to show you when we stop by my place."

"Oh, really? And what would that be?" Lincoln asked, not detecting the saucy tone of her voice and the intent she laid underneath it all.

As if to give him a teaser for what was to come, she broke their handholding to stuff a hand in his back pocket and give his cheek a small squeeze, earning a yelp from him.

"You'll see."

 **A/N:** While I was writing this, I was tempted to have Ronnie Anne call Lincoln "Lame-O" but I figured that she'd abandon that sort of nicknaming when they got older. Hope that doesn't send flames in my inbox. Although I'll be reinforcing it with a flame-retardant alloy just in case some of you get any bright ideas.

Get it? Bright ideas? 'Cause fire is bright and…okay, I'll stop now.


End file.
